The Steam Engine

In short, time was tight, and he couldn't afford any complications.

Su Ming had Little Spiky Head move the things blocking the door, then gently opened the storage room door. There was no one in the hallway.

He pulled up his jacket's hood, put on a baseball cap, a face mask, and a pair of dark sunglasses, then shouldered his backpack.

After getting used to Little Spiky Head, Su Ming found that she was actually very agile and resilient. She vaulted over the stairwell from the fourth floor and jumped straight down to the third, making hardly any noise.

Little Spiky Head's feet were small. Su Ming swiped a pair of women's sneakers on the third floor, stuffed them tight with who knew how many layers of socks, then leaped out of a window.

Someone saw Little Spiky Head and cried out in surprise, but Su Ming couldn't care about that anymore.

According to the information White Bone had provided, her enemies might arrive in three days, though it could also be five. But this wasn't a question of probability. If they weren't ready before the enemies arrived, Su Ming and White Bone's chance of death would be one hundred percent!

So he had to make use of every moment to solve the problem of White Bone's ship's propulsion!

During his earlier chance to go online, he had already found his target: a shipbuilding industrial park by the sea, over 120 kilometers away. It had the equipment he needed.

It was shift-change time, and workers who didn't live at the factory were heading out on all kinds of vehicles. Su Ming ran up to the target he had chosen earlier, pulled the unsuspecting owner to the ground, snatched his helmet, and rode off on his motorcycle, racing through the factory gates before the elderly gatekeeper could react.

The worker chased him outside the gates, only to see the thoroughly covered figure ride away. Only then did he notice that an envelope had been stuffed into his arms when he was pulled down. He took it out and opened it, finding 3,000 yuan in cash.

What's wrong with this guy? the worker cursed.

There was plenty of fuel in the motorcycle. Su Ming rode for two hours straight and reached his destination. Night had fallen by then. He slowed down and followed the map he had downloaded for offline use earlier, soon finding his target.

According to what he had found online, this was a small factory that made small steamships. But judging by its size in person, it was hardly small: it covered more than a hundred mu.

Using Spirit Vision, Su Ming climbed over the main gate and entered the factory grounds, avoiding everyone.

He went first to the workshop office, which was empty. The lights were off, but that didn't affect Spirit Vision, so he began searching through the documents.

There were a lot of documents, and it took Su Ming some time to find what he was looking for: a small cargo ship of around 3,000 tons, equipped with a 2,000-kilowatt Curtis steam engine and a biomass-fueled boiler.

There were several reasons he had chosen a steam engine.

First was the fuel. They had no oil, at least not at present. That meant those fancy oil-burning systems and gas turbines were out of the question.

Second, Su Ming's current magic power capacity wouldn't allow it either. He and White Bone had already run tests: the more intricate the object being transported, the more magic power it consumed. Although he could transport things in batches with breaks in between, time was exactly what they lacked.

Lastly, there was the technology. Even if he copied an overly advanced propulsion system to the other world in its entirety, Su Ming wouldn't even know how to preheat and start it, much less operate and maintain it.

There was no time to research and learn that either.

Only the steam engine, a creation from two hundred years ago, was simple, rugged, and easy to learn. Su Ming had also chosen a relatively simple configuration.

If he really had no restrictions, he would get a nuclear reactor and make sure he could keep the enemies chasing him forever.

In the dry dock, Su Ming found the ship described in the documents. Its propulsion system had already been fully installed and tested.

He began the spell's preparation phase and, after assessing it, found that he would need two transports.

It was eight in the evening. If he immediately carried out one transport at full strength, he could perform the second after ten hours of rest. That way, he wouldn't have to worry about the workers discovering it when they came to work.

He spoke with White Bone and then began. He chose the boiler and steam engine for the first transport.

In the other world, White Bone worked with Su Ming to match the materials. She directed her skeleton servants to move the materials they would use to one side and pile them together. This would speed up the spell's execution and reduce Su Ming's magic power consumption.

"That's not very much." The necromancer sounded doubtful. "Can a little pile like that really be exchanged for a magic device that can propel me at fourteen knots?"

"It's quite a bit. Several tons, at least," Su Ming said. "It'll take up more space once it's turned into equipment, and this is only the first batch."

"Even so, that's remarkable. At that size, I could install several!"

"We can get more if we escape," Su Ming said. "Transport is only the first step. There's still installation and testing afterward, and neither is any less troublesome than the transport."

"Simplest Form: Summoning of All Things!"

As soon as the runes unfolded, Su Ming felt a pressure completely unlike what he had experienced when casting on a smaller scale. The dark runes faintly turned golden, a sign that the laws were on the verge of going out of control.

"Miss White Bone, are you sure I can control something on this scale?"

"You really are transporting something remarkable," the necromancer said thoughtfully. "It's just that the laws of this world are afraid. It's all right. They have no clear will, so they can't actually do anything to stop you."

"Are you sure?" Su Ming was extremely hesitant.

"I'm sure. I do this sort of thing all the time," White Bone assured him confidently.

Su Ming couldn't shake the feeling that he had learned something remarkable.

He calmed himself and guided the spell through the preliminary work for its first and second stages. Fortunately, just as she had said, the runes were only trembling, and the spell was still running smoothly.

"Construct!" Su Ming raised his hand. The materials blazed with light, their structures changing rapidly. He felt a sudden emptiness throughout his body and nearly fell to his knees, but gritted his teeth and held on.

He watched until the materials finished combining and the boiler and steam engine appeared in full. Only then did everything go black, and he fainted.

As agreed, White Bone woke Su Ming an hour early. He had been unconscious for a full nine hours.

"Do you feel dizzy?" White Bone asked.

Su Ming shook his head. Although he had felt awful while casting the spell, he was much better after sleeping.

"Your magic power has recovered well too," White Bone said. "I take back what I said about you being useless at magic."

"I thought you admitted I was a genius when I awakened the spatial element," Su Ming said.

"No. Awakening the spatial element isn't something a living being should be able to do, so that doesn't count," the necromancer insisted. "But having no aftereffects from overdrawing your magic power is a physique that spellcasters would greatly envy."

Su Ming said he couldn't accept that logic.

As they chatted, he controlled Little Spiky Head and got to work.

First came the tools. He left the welder, but drills and cutting machines were essential. He couldn't leave out any of the wrenches, screwdrivers, hex keys, and the like, and he also took a set of common measuring tools.

Next came screws of various sizes, spare parts, and so on. Whenever he saw any, he took some.